November 3, 2004

This Ain't America Is It? Where Can I Be...

So yeah. I just started crying in the middle of the supermarket. Which is embarrassing.

This is difficult to cope with because I want so badly to believe that people are good, to have faith in humanity. But it is impossible for me to understand or respect the choices this country has made. I've never felt more alienated from this country and its people.

I guess that is both the blessing and the curse of living in NYC, we are so sheltered from the reality of America. It's almost like my thoughts of moving to Canada are moot, because for all intents and purposes I'm already an embittered expatriate. Looking at this country from the outside wondering what the hell is going on. And I hate feeling that way, feeling so alienated and so judgmental towards masses of people. But how can I not? How could this really be what America is?

A lot of us are simply refusing to accept the result. Telling ourselves "they stole another one," "it was fixed" and so on. We need to stop that. This is real.

Sure, they would have stolen this one if they had to. But they didn't have to, because this vote truly did reflect how Americans think and feel in most of this country. If we are going to change that reality, or even survive it, we need to start being real with ourselves about it.

Just like the essence of white privilege is the luxury of being able to pretend racism doesn't exist, living in our liberal NY oasis puts us in a privileged position. It's so easy to just put our heads in the sand, and keep telling ourselves this can't be real, that we don't have to believe what we see. But there are millions of Americans who do not have that luxury. Eleven states in this country just passed laws confirming that homosexuals are second-class citizens. The gay Americans who live in those states do not have the luxury of telling themselves this isn't real.

We owe it to to everyone like them, and to ourselves, to let this be a wake-up call. To start getting real about the country we live in, and figure out how to change it.